Review: WCCO's 'Mid-Morning'

In the late 1990s, I was part of probably the last attempt to launch a new nationally syndicated radio talk network. "The Hot Tub Radio Party" was a terrible name for a radio network, but it was a great idea that just got steamrolled by the ongoing consolidation in the radio business. A core group of six of us did 15 hours a day of live talk radio, shuffled into various configurations during the course of the day. I was teamed up with a guy for two hours in the morning (3-5 a.m. PT), in which we did a rapid-fire look at the day's news. Very jokey, almost improv in nature and airing on East Coast stations. I was back at 9 a.m. as part of a three-person female-oriented midday show and I did my own three-hour talk show late at night for a couple of chains of mostly rock stations. Lots of talent, but we were always churning affiliates. Every time we'd sign a new station, someone else we would be bought out by Clear Channel and we'd be replaced by conservative talk. We had been using an old ABC Radio satellite to send out our shows and when that satellite became unavailable after two years, we just shut it all down and walked away from about 40 affiliates.

While this might all sound like a big digression, I mention it because I know first-hand how hard it is to make news entertaining. It's especially a challenge when you're ploughing the same field multiple times a day. And I've worked in local television, so I have some sense of the behind-the-scenes scrambling that takes place in order to get any live program on the air. I'm also someone who roots for live local programming, even if it can sometimes be mundane and predictable.

It's a fool's errand to review any show's potential based on the first episode, whether that show is a multi-million dollar HBO drama or a local news program. But while you can't judge the show's future based on a first look, you can sometimes gets a sense of the challenges faced by the program. And since any live premiere is always about five seconds away from disaster, you can usually get a pretty good idea of the show's strengths as well.

WCCO launched "Mid-Morning" on Monday and it owes its existence in part to the failure of the syndicated talk show "The Queen Latifah Show," which was cancelled by Sony Television late last fall. The station opted to fill the hour with local programming instead of another syndicated talker and I'm sure that's a good move for the station's bottom line.

Hosts Jason DeRusha and Kylie Bearse are very comfortable in non-teleprompter segments and that strength is probably the best part of the show right now. They're already familiar to the station's audience and I suspect they could do the news segments in their sleep. But they also have the ability to be conversational and quirky and the long-term success of the show will hinge on how well the station is able to harness their non-news talents.

The biggest decision any late morning news show has to make is whether the show is going to be a slightly lighter hour of news or something different. Either approach is fine, and based on the first show, WCCO has opted to make the hour a slightly more lifestyle-based take on their long-running morning show. That's certainly the safest choice but I can't help wondering if it's sustainable in the long run.

Part of the problem with doing much news at 9:00 a.m. is that the stories have already been chewed through a few times since "WCCO This Morning" kicked off at 4:30 a.m. There's not much new to say and while you can't ignore the news, the show will have to figure out how to present the headlines in a way that isn't just "Hey, here's a couple of packages you might have already seen."

DeRusha and Bearse will apparently be joined on a regular basis by fellow morning show people like Jamie Yuccas, Ali Lucia, Kim Johnson and Matt Brickman. The challenge for the non-DeRuscha/Bearse contributors is to figure out ways to integrate into the conversation without sounding stilted or hesitant. Anyone working in a major TV market like the Twin Cities can talk off a teleprompter like a pro. Winging it - or at least sounding natural during a on-camera conversation - is a tough skill to master. Those awkward conversational gaps can sometimes still be a problem in the early morning show and it's only going to be harder in a program that is more unrehearsed and semi-natural.

That problem manifested itself Monday during a segment in which they discussed a hot topic of the day, which turned out to be Indiana's recent passage of a controversial "religious freedom" law. The discussion was fine and on-topic, but there wasn't much interaction or passion. It's a nice thought doing these segments, but there are a couple of problems. Everyone is overly polite, which sparks a lot of comments along the lines of "good point." Also, any truly controversial topic is going to be difficult to get into without well, being controversial to some viewers. And rightly, no one wants to purposely annoy the people at home.

If the point of "Mid-Morning" is to be a slightly looser version of the station's morning news block, than it won't take long to dial it in. But if WCCO's management is looking for something distinctive, than there's work to be done.

While I suspect there aren't a lot of extra station resources available for "Mid-Morning," there are some reasonably easy tweaks to try. It's fine to solicit Facebook comments for a later segment. But it might be fun to solicit video questions for the group that can be sprung on them in a daily segment. Anything from "What's the most common thing viewers say to you when they meet you?" to "If you cover one national story, which one would you pick?" Running the question without any prep would spark answers that are honest and less rehearsed.

It would be interesting to open up the show a bit internally. Do a webcam desk segment with someone from the web site. Talk to a producer or assignment editor about a story or two that are being worked on for stories later in the day. It's the type of thing that's casual without being lightweight and that's the difference between a solid daytime news show and "Twin Cities Live." And while I'm happy there's not a live audience, it might be fun to occasionally have live acoustic/folk/roots music for the bumper music.

All of this is a long way of saying that "Mid Morning" is a new hour that at its worst is going to be a solid addition to WCCO's line-up. Whether it's more than that depends on the the resources and time available from co-hosts that are already working some very long days.